Friends,
Many of you know that for the last 18 years, February 14 has been set aside as a day to remember and honour the thousands of Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing in Canada. According to NWAC 520 Aboriginal women are known to have gone missing or been murdered since 1980.
In Native communities across Canada, people know women who have disappeared - daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends. No one knows what has happened to them. Many other women are known to have been murdered. The deaths and disappearances of these women eat at the hearts of all who love them.
The disappearances and murders of so many women don't happen without a cause. For generations, Canada has pursued policies that have dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of their lands and resources, and attacked their food supplies, their social structures, their languages, and their ways of life. Residential schools and other policies of assimilation and genocide have scarred families and communities. Canada's policies have created poverty, violence, and despair, and women have disproportionately borne the brunt of these. Many of the most vulnerable have had to make hard choices, only to be preyed on by Canadian racism and indifference.
Women keep getting murdered, and keep disappearing. Yet Canada, the provinces, police forces, coroners, and media remain indifferent. Why? Because the women are Indian.
Today is about defending the lives of Aboriginal women and demanding justice for all the Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing. It is also about honouring, mourning, and remembering all the women who have gone. To those sisters, we say: your life is precious. We were not with you and we did not help you in the time of your greatest need. But we are here today to say we remember you. And we will never forget you.
Toronto Rally for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
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When: Sunday, February 14, 2009 @ 12 pm
Where: Rally at Police HQ, 40 College St at Bay
We'll march to the Coroner's Office, 26 Grenville St; followed by a Gathering with food at U of T's Centre for Women and Trans People (CWTP), 563 Spadina Ave (CWTP is wheelchair accessible)
We will also provide TTC tokens for those attending by public transit
*** To volunteer before or during the rally/march, please meet at U of T's CWTP at 11am on Feb 14.
*** To get involved with No More Silence (event organizers), come to the New Volunteers Meeting on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2-4pm at the CWTP.
*** To endorse or support the rally in any way, contact: *nomoresilence@riseup.net*
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=451625680316&ref=mf
For details of today's Vancouver rally see: http://rabble.ca/whatsup/february-14th-annual-womens-memorial-march-dtes...
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Mom and I had just finished the vigil/rally for the murdered and missing women from the DTES and across the nation. The rally was winding down, so we headed back towards home, traveling through China Town where a Chinese New Year’s celebration was simultaneously occurring. Emotions frayed from having just attended a memorial for hundreds of missing and murdered women across this nation, we end up colliding with crowds of shopping tourists and celebrating Chinese Canadians.
As we picked our way through the festivities, we happened to come across our illustrious mayor, Gregor Robertson. Gregor was decked out in his Chinese New Years attire, and giving his full support to the voters and tax payers with the potential to advance his political career and agenda. How he can attend this event and abstain from the other is no mystery. The voting and financial power of the Chinese Canadian community obviously overshadows that of the Native Canadians and other women lost and murdered in the DTES.
Angered by this slight to my social conscience, I approached our Mayor to throw a question his way, “Mayor Robertson, why aren’t you showing your support for the murdered and missing women of the DTES today?!” To this he quickly responded, “I’m heading there now, to Oppenheimer Park,” a somewhat fractured smile, stretched across his face. I decided to leave it at that, partly due to the sudden nature of the encounter and my being flustered over the issues at hand, unable to formulate a response that I could be proud of. So instead of continuing the dialogue, we passed each other on the sidewalk, moving in opposite directions, in more ways than one.
While I do give Mayor Gregor credit for the fact that he is actually attending the Vigil, I can’t help but think that when I had left, the vigil’s numbers had depleted by nearly half, following a passionate and heart wrenching series of speeches in front of Vancouver's DTES Police Station. This spot was chosen by the organizers to insure that our incompetent police force would finally get the message and begin to work for all citizens, be they wealthy taxpayers or the most vulnerable amongst us. This had been the climax of the entire event. I wonder; if it had been hundreds of middle class or rich women murdered and missing, would the ineptitude and Johnny-come-lately attitude of both our police force and our elected officials have even been a factor in this tragedy? On that issue, I don’t think I need to answer my own question; it’s too obvious. Mayor Robertson, like all those to have come before, has revealed that his priorities, and those of the moneyed interest that run this City, haven't shifted or skipped a beat, even with the international media spotlight being provided by the 2010 Corporate Games.
Gregor will arrive at the tail end, when the numbers are depleted, and like our infamous Prime Minister, Herr Harper and our Auctioneer Premier, Gordon “Red Mittens” Campbell, be there at the right moment, for that critical photo op. Politicians come and go; their promises and empty rhetoric echo through the streets of the City and then disappear into the sea of collective apathy and greed that keeps this flawed system running. Wake up Canada! It’s time we rose from our apathy induced slumber and began to care for our neighbors. It’s time we shelved our collective narcissism, and turned this ship of self indulgence around. We should be better citizens than we are. The time has come to react, before it’s too late, before we succumb to our baser natures and leave all hope behind. Truth before lies! Morality before greed! Not only accountability, but action is required for the absent voices that are no longer to be heard in our downtown streets and across our fractured nation.